If you browse this site a bit, you'll see that I'm a big fan of the Atari VCS, a fervent enough one that I've programmed and written about the machine.

Aaron Lanterman, a Georgia Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering colleague of mine, recently told me about Joe Zbiciak, a friend of his who has written an emulator for the Atari's main competitor in early 1980s home videogames: the Mattel Intellivion. And a complete SDK for the Intellivision. Yow.

Joe's just announced the 2007 Intellivision Programming Contest. The material spoils are modest ($100 for the winner), but as they'd say on Iron Chef, the winner will also enjoy fame forever -- at least among people like me who follow this stuff.

I've not yet tried writing for the Intellivision because I prefer doing my vintage console programming, ahem, without the raincoat of a frame buffer. But Joe's tools are so comprehensive that I might give it a shot. Of course, I do have that Atari book to finish writing with Nick... and probably a few hundred other things I should prioritize first... But hey, I've got til November, so I can let this eat into Fall work as well as Summer.

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